Tag Archives: Masked Lapwing

As the migrating shore birds slowly build up in numbers at the Western Treatment Plant lagoons, I have been making a series of visits with a few friends to watch and photograph the spring nesting. There are many species building nests and raising young. The highlight was finding two separate Brolga nests.

Swan nesting, Western treatment plant

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Nesting House Sparrows

Masked Lapwing nesting – I was a bit worried about this nest, the water rose quite high after a good rain fall a day earlier.

I noticed 5 Masked Lapwings along Elster Creek recently that seemed to be in a constant state of agitation with each other. Several would stood tall and thrust out the wing spurs when another pair flew over or around them. Spur-winged Plover is an alternate name for Masked Lapwings. I knew about the spurs but had not seem them closely until I had developed these shots. The male tends to have larger spurs.

Lapwings use these spurs against potential predators or anyone coming too close to nest sites and chicks. While the attacks can seem quite aggressive, the birds rarely strike their ‘victims’, preferring a close approach to scare them away. The species is fearless and I have seen them go after much bigger birds like Kites and Eagles.

The birds I saw below did not attack each other but did make quite a bit of noise and displayed much posturing.

While waiting for a neighbour to come by so we could walk over to the lake and along Elster Creek I saw this little Brown Thornbill in a tree that overhangs my front garden. Not a very common bird in inner suburbia unless you have good undergrowth for it to escape the attention of other aggressive birds and the predator Butcherbird. I have seen the Thornbills for a couple of years now in the street so the cover must be improving.

Brown Thornbill

After watching the Thornbill for few minutes we walked over to the Lake and saw a few birds, some regular and some not some common.

Australasian Grebe in breeding plumage – one of the three Grebes we see in Victoria but not very often at the Lake

Willie Wagtail – a regular in low numbers

Masked Lapwing – usually a few somewhere in the area and often heard during the night flying over the suburb squawking loudly all the way.

Male Magpie Lark – a crazy bird during breeding season – will attack any reflection of itself even in sunglasses on top of a woman’s head…

Female Hardhead – not that common here. Also called a White-eyed Duck due to the males white eye ring. Has found sanctuary here to escape the current Duck Season.

I love it when I can do several things at once. I feel a sense of achievement when I accomplish the goal for the day and feel even better when I can do two things for the journey of one. Bunnings is a hardware super store (for those that are not familiar with Australian Hardware Super-stores). I often make a Bunnings run to procure equipment and supplies for my gardens, home projects and camping trips. Opposite my favourite store is Karkarook Park. I stopped in last week to look for photo opportunities before I visited Bunnings. The Park is a restored sand mine and now has a wetlands area made up of several well vegetated lagoons, a large lake used for canoeing and fishing and pockets of woodlands around the edge. It has a very good range of water and woodlands birds and I often get up to 50 species on an extended visit. It is close enough to home to just pop in for half an hour and look for a species to photograph

Masked Lapwing – previously known as a Spur Winged Plover. It can be a very aggressive bird often taking on Raptors (and people) if they get too close to feeding grounds or nests. They make their various alarm calls quite casually, spooking other nearby birds. The Lapwing can be difficult to get close to….

Australasian Darter – a young female, the males are generally all black. This one allowed me to approach slowly along the pier until I was quite close.

Australasian Darter – they are also called a snake bird due to their swimming habit (very low in the water and sliding backwards into the water to hunt) and their very long snake like neck. This one waved it around quite a bit keeping an eye on fish below, hunters above and me…

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Interesting eye and bill detail

When the Lapwing nearby gave one of its alarm calls the Darter immediately looked up for danger. She did not fly off or panic but was very aware. It is interesting that birds know each others specific danger calls